Our pundits pronounce on Wednesday's presidential debate

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton (R) speaks as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump looks on during the final presidential debate at the Thomas & Mack Center on the campus of the University of Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada on October 19, 2016. /MARK RALSTON / AFP/Getty Images

On Wednesday night, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton faced off in a last, bruising debate prior to the Nov. 8 presidential election. How did they perform? Did they offer any surprises? Will it matter? We asked our in-house panel for their thoughts.

The panel: Andrew Cohen is a Canadian Fulbright Scholar at The Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington. Kathy Brock is a professor in the School of Policy Studies and Department of Political Studies, Queen’s University; Tyler Dawson is the Citizen’s deputy editorial pages editor; and Robert Sibley is an Ottawa journalist and political scientist.

OK, panel, you’ve watched three debates now. Over the course of the three, how effective has Clinton been in reaching undecided or wavering voters?

Cohen:In all the debates, Hillary Clinton did what she had to do: defend and broaden her appeal to independents, moderates and women, particularly Republicans in the suburbs of the battleground states, women who cannot abide Donald Trump the more they learn about him. She has been helped by a man who seems to dislike women. Tonight, in calling her “a nasty woman,” he reinforced the impression that he’s a misogynist.

Brock:Clinton has clearly restated her positions and solidified her support base. She also looked strong and tough, two essential qualities for a president. However, I am not sure she has won people to her side so much as Donald Trump has driven people into her camp who were not inclined to back her, such as Bernie Sanders supporters. The real test will be whether these people actually get out and vote. People have been tuning in to the debates for the sport but will this translate into votes? There is much cynicism about both candidates that may cause people to stay at home.

Sibley: Somehow, despite her policy literacy and her technocratic intelligence, Clinton was simply unable to demonstrate that she’s the best hope for the American republic (and the world at large) at this time in its history. She may have her base vote stitched up – women, ethnics, comfy liberals, but given Trump’s recent delirium tremens, who else could they support?

Yet in terms of wooing the undecided voter, Clinton’s debate performances, including this last one, were not deal-clinchers. She may have “won” the debates – and, in all likelihood, the presidency – but only by default. After all her years inside the Beltway, this woman cannot connect with voters at the emotional level. Maybe that’s the problem.

Dawson: I suspect she was effective. She dipped and dodged on emails and Wikileaks but she’s elucidated policy – on health care, sort of on foreign affairs and on immigration. She even touted her conservative bona fides on immigration and border security.

More to the point, she seemed an effective foil for Trump’s mania. It’s almost impossible to imagine people gravitating to him who weren’t already in his camp. The big winner from this debate could well be Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson.

Do you feel Trump did anything in Wednesday’s debate to regain the ground he appears to have lost in the last few weeks? Briefly explain.

Cohen: Trump had his best debate. He was better at staying on message, holding Clinton accountable, making his case on trade, jobs, debt and corruption. Did he regain ground? No. She was better, and it is too late. People are voting.

Brock: Yes, Trump’s performance has been improving with each debate. In the third debate, he did two notable things: First, he did manage to get Clinton to admit that she had voted for the Wall with Mexico and caught her misrepresenting his statements on Russia, NATO and nuclear weapons. Second, he clarified some of his key policies and added substance to them. However, the gains he might have made are likely to be overshadowed by the image created of him in the media in recent weeks by his own controversial statements, the misrepresentation of his comments by his opponents and the satires of his candidacy. He may not be taken seriously by the very people he needs to win over to his side.

Sibley:It was hard – and embarrassing – to watch this boy in a man’s body continuing his dive down the rhetorical rabbit hole with yet more rants about vote-rigging and media dishonesty. Early on this election campaign I had a small hope that Trump would grow in stature, become more presidential (at least in public). But over the course of the campaign he revealed himself as incapable of articulating a coherent – and responsible – response to the crises of our time. His performance in this last debate, with his rhetoric about election corruption and media conspiracies, merely reinforced the sense that he is not sufficiently mature, emotionally or intellectually, to lead the United States.

That said, he got in some telling shots – at least a far as voters are concerned – when he hammered the issue of Clinton’s email scandal and the pass the FBI and Justice Department gave to her despite her “illegal” activities. As he put it, “She should not be allowed to run based on what she did with emails.”

Dawson: Absolutely. The first question on the Supreme Court helped him. Evangelicals – a large Republican constituency – are obsessed with the next nominees (a conservative, Antonin Scalia, died recently, and a liberal, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is 83, and there’s speculation she could retire). Trump said clearly he supports the Second Amendment (the right to bear arms). He reiterated that he’s pro-life. He answered the question: The Constitution is not a living tree (as in Canada) it should be interpreted as the Founders intend.

What was the high moment of Wednesday’s debate?

Cohen:Clinton offered more than one passionate appeal, but her best was reflecting on her experience, in some 30 years in public life, deflecting his gnawing criticism – a theme of his campaign – that she had “bad experience,” that she had done nothing. When she discussed helping children and women in the 1970s when he was in court defending himself against charges of racial discrimination in one of his apartment buildings, to her service as First Lady, in the Senate and as Secretary of State, she did not run from her career in public service, she celebrated it. It was the best moment of the debate.

Brock: The start and finish of the debate jointly constituted the high point. At the beginning, in the debate over the Supreme Court and future appointment of justices, both candidates spoke about their policies and future appointments with candour and passion, providing new information to voters. It was clear that both candidates believe in the importance and significance of the Supreme Court in American life.

At the end of the debate, both candidates provided a one-minute summary of their visions. Clinton spoke about what America “should be.” Trump talked about “Making America great again.” Both again spoke with passion and conviction. We saw what was motivating them both to run for the most powerful position in the world. For a few minutes, the debate was about what is important.

Sibley: At one point Clinton accused Trump of being a “puppet” of Russian President Vladimir Putin and getting his help for his campaign, but Trump turned the tables by pointing out how the Russian leader has outplayed and outsmarted her and the rest of the Obama administration. “She doesn’t like Putin because Putin has outsmarted her every step of the way,” he said. “She and Obama have been outplayed.”

Dawson: In a brilliant monologue, Clinton talked about what she was doing at a given time in her career versus what Trump was doing: when she was hunting down Osama bin Laden, he was hosting Celebrity Apprentice. “I am happy to compare my 30 years of experience,” she said. Brilliant. Polished. Cutthroat.

What was the low moment of Wednesday’s debate?

Cohen: Undoubtedly, the lowest moment was Trump refusing to accept the results of the election. “I will let you know,” he said. In effect, he was saying: the system is illegitimate, unless I win. No candidate in the history of the republic has said that; in doing so, he was, in a sense, asking Americans to give up on the ideals and principles of the republic. It was dismaying, even horrifying, in a democracy. It may well be the coup de grace to his failing candidacy.

Brock: The true low point of the third debate was the discussion over the allegations against Trump and his treatment of women. It was distasteful on many levels, especially when so many important issues face the next president. Neither candidate looked presidential during this segment of the debate. It fed the basest interests. I would have preferred to hear a discussion over the role of women in their future presidencies. The topic as debated might have made for good media, perhaps, but it contributed nothing to the making of a president, regardless of who wins.

Sibley: Trump’s was a stunner: he wouldn’t commit to accepting the results on the election vote. “I want to keep you in suspense,” he told the moderator. Wow. A politician in a modern liberal democracy just walked in to the terrain of dictatorship.

Clinton’s low moment came when, in response to a question about why it was that people who gave money to the Clinton Foundation got special access to her as secretary of state, she tried to sidestep the whole issue by waxing on and on about the Foundation’s good works.

Dawson: Trump on NAFTA. He transitioned, in the span of mere seconds, from wanting more free trade, to calling NAFTA the worst trade deal ever, to saying it would be renegotiated, and if a deal couldn’t be reached the U.S. would go its separate ways.

Incoherent. This is bad for Canada and its economy.

Bonus question: That’s it for the debates — any final thoughts?

Cohen: Like elections, debates matter. Trump entered the first debate last month behind but in contention. He leaves them behind and out of contention. The first debate was the first, loud knock on the door of his undoing – and undo him it did. Had he prepared, had he been more disciplined, he might have had a chance to blunt Clinton’s appeal and sow doubt about her integrity. Instead, in three outings, he allowed Hillary Clinton to look better informed, more poised, more calm, more measured. She was able to make this a referendum on him. She looked like a president. He did not.

Brock: In elections, anything goes. You can’t count either candidate out until the ballots are counted. I find it fascinating that Clinton does not have a more substantial lead in the polls given the way the campaigns have gone. This is an indicator of how Americans are viewing this election. The debates may have increased citizen disillusionment and cynicism, which is truly regrettable for American democracy.

At a point in history when Americans need inspiration and confidence in their leaders, the debates overall were neither inspirational nor informative. If the two candidates want to be seen as the president that America needs, both have a lot of work to do before Nov. 8.

Sibley:While both candidates touched on many of the major issues of our time – everything from globalization and terrorism to immigration and free trade – I never heard in any the three debates either candidate present a holistic vision of themselves as president. That is to say: Beyond the policy pitches and banal political clichés, why do they want to be president, what do they have to offer the country (and the world), why them rather than someone else? In short, what is their “vision” of the world?

Dawson: Every journalist in the world is going to talk about Trump refusing to say outright if he would gracefully concede a lost election, given his claims that it’s rigged against him. Think about that. More than two centuries of peaceful power transitions – ignoring the war fought over secession – and he can’t bring himself to say he’d be a gracious loser. Stunning.

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